Loree Levy of the California Employment Development Department told KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO that jobs in the home-building sector were among 12,000 new positions created last month.

“We certainly did see an increase of 5,100 jobs in construction and it looks indeed as if the bottom has come out of construction, and we do some signs of more of a recovery there and with sustained job growth, so that’s encouraging news,” said Levy.

Other significant job gains came in the education and health services sector, Levy added.

Despite the loss of 7,000 jobs in local and state government, Levy believes economic recovery is fully underway.

“This is California’s strongest year-over private sector job growth both in number and percent since way back in March of 2001,” she said. “So, yes, we do have job growth occurring, especially in the private sector, and hopefully we’ll see some continued momentum in those numbers in the months ahead.

A forecast released this week projected that employment in the state would pick up slowly in the coming year, with the unemployment rate dropping to 8.5 percent in 2014.